Comprehension: Family Planning

     A country’s human population can grow beyond available resources such as food, water and shelter. This leads to problems such as overcrowding and starvation.

     Many countries have found it essential to regulate their national populations so that they have populations that they can cater for. Catering for a human population does not involve only food and shelter but many other requirements such as education, medical services, employment, and transportation.

     A country regulates its population through family planning. Family planning means that parents voluntarily limit their children to the number they want.

     An average girl is capable of becoming a mother at the age of about 15, and may continue bearing children until the age 45. If she bears children at the rate of one in two years, and all of them remain alive, she may have a total of 15 children. If most of the women in a particular generation did this, the country’s population would explode.

     Today, educated parents voluntarily limit the size of their families because they know that by so doing they can better provide for the children they choose to have.

     Some people argue, especially on religious grounds, that family planning is wrong because it often involves the termination of the life of a baby. But, in fact, there are several family planning methods and the emphasis in family planning methods and the emphasis in family planning is on the prevention of conception, rather than the termination of life. One can therefore choose a method of birth control that agrees with one’s religious beliefs.